Student dies while reenacting Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, onlookers thought it was part of act

On Good Friday, April 15, a Nigerian university student collapsed and died while putting on a reenactment of the crucifixion scene during a school performance of “The Passion of the Christ.”

The cause of death has not yet been revealed, and many who witnessed the student’s passing thought it was a prank. 

“Initially when it happened we thought it was a joke,” said eyewitness Michael Eluwa in a statement to Vanguard News Nigeria regarding the tragedy, which took place at the Clariantian University of Nigeria (CUN) in Nekede.

The student, 25-year-old Suel Ambrose, was playing Saint Peter in the play, and he fell down during the scene where Peter slices off the ear of a Roman soldier in order to protect Jesus, according to a report by the Mirror. The audience became confused by the scene as they initially thought “it was part of the drama,” Eluwa noted in his testimony.

Soon, the audience realized the situation “was a serious matter,” once the student did not get up and began bleeding, then bystanders quickly got together to assist him.

“At the time the incident occurred everybody came together and rushed the deceased to a school hospital and later, when the case became worse, he was taken to a nearby Federal Medical Center, FMC.” 

Eluwa continued in his statement, “It was from there we heard he could not survive it.” Ambrose reportedly had dreams of becoming a priest after graduating from the university. According to officials from the university, Ambrose’s death will be investigated and addressed at a later time.

An earlier mid-performance fatality took place in 2018, in which three of four members of an Indonesian pop group called Seventeen died after a tsunami took them out to sea during a beach concert.